Sitting Still

February 14th, 2012

It's not surprising that the owner of Abeking & Rasmussen's 134-foot SWATH is willing to go to great lengths for stability.

One of my first shipyard visits was to A&R, where I was told of how the wife of the owner of Silver Cloud got so seasick they were going to have to leave yachting behind. Fortunately the stable SWATH was based on commercial transit ships in the North Sea and could eliminate practically any roll with its underwater "torpedos."

As you can guess by Silver Cloud's four years at sea, the untraditional yacht has proven successful in keeping the couple cruising. But now, the yacht has a tender just as stable.

On view at this year's Miami boat show is the smallest boat to have a Seakeeper gyro stabilizer installed: the Intrepid 390 Sport Yacht, as Capt. Thiel wrote about last week. Below is a video showing the difference a gyro makes, with the owner of Silver Cloud discussing the installation: